The development of the computer is commonly regarded as one of the most significant advances of the last half of the twentieth century. Computers have simplified many aspects of everyday life and have led to significant productivity gains in the economy. Recent needs in image processing and complex computing have spurned significant advances in microprocessor speed and memory storage density. Further advances and future applications of computers depend on mankind's ability to process larger amounts of information in increasingly more efficient ways.
Silicon is at the heart of today's computer. The advances in computing power and speed have largely been a consequence of better understanding the fundamental properties of silicon and harnessing those properties for practical effect. Initial progress was predicated on building basic electronic components such as transistors and diodes out of silicon and later progress followed from the development of integrated circuits. Recent advances represent a continuation of these trends and currently emphasize miniaturization and the integration of an ever larger number of microelectronic devices on a single chip. Smaller devices lead to higher memory storage densities, more highly integrated circuits and reduced interaction times between devices on the same chip.
An inherent feature of silicon based computing devices is the binary execution of mathematical operations and other data processing objectives. In binary computing, the computing medium, silicon, has two programming states available for representing and manipulating data. The two programming states are typically labeled “0” and “1” and the volume of silicon used to store a “0” or a “1” is typically referred to as a bit. Data, including numbers and letters, is converted to a series of one or more “0”'s and/or “1”'s where each “0” or “1” is stored in a separate bit. Thus, a series of bits may be programmed to store data by establishing the appropriate combination of “0”'s and “1”'s. Manipulations of data involve bit operations that modify the state of a bit according to a desired computing objective to produce an output that typically includes a series of bits that store a different combination or sequence of “0”'s and/or “1's” than was present at the outset of the manipulation.
Binary computers have proven remarkably successful for a number of computing applications such as automation, word processing and basic mathematical computations. As computing needs expand and more complex applications are envisioned, it is becoming more evident that conventional binary computing suffers from a number of limitations. Higher computing speeds and more parallel operation, for example, are predicated on an ability to continue to miniaturize silicon based microelectronic devices. Concerns over whether miniaturization efforts can continue are becoming more pronounced as many people believe that practical and fundamental limits will present increasingly insurmountable barriers to miniaturization. Complex computing situations such as those requiring adaptability, interactivity or highly parallel processing do not appear to be optimally achieved or even possible through conventional binary methods.
In order for the computer industry to expand and for the computer to become relevant to more applications and more complex computing situations, changes in the way computers function are in order.